Sixteen hours from now, I will be in America. My strategy for this one is to stay up all night packing, take advantage of the fact that Air France will serve me wine, down a demi-bouteille as I board, and sleep for the duration of my flight and any potential delays. I'm pretty excited to see how it goes.
I'm in a slightly better place than I was a few days ago, because I really can't wait to see my friends and family, but I won't pretend I don't still have my doubts about leaving this place for good. I keep telling myself that it's fine because I'll come back, but that doesn't really tell the whole story, since a lot of what I'll miss won't be here this summer, or next year, or after graduation. I won't be able to stop by museums for 40 minutes because they're free with my student card, I won't be able to text my host mother that I won't be eating dinner at home because my friends and I decided to go to the best creperie in Paris, I won't get to wander the hallways of the Sorbonne and wonder how it's possible that I go to school there, I won't bump into my friends and classmates on the Champs-Elysees, I won't have a weekly Tuesday lunch date with five French friends, I won't be able to listen to Voltage (without question the best radio station in Paris) and have them announce "Beeyonce--Eef I Wear a Boi" and receive a text seconds later because a friend of mine is listening too...none of this can be recreated when I come back as a tourist. And most of my friends are going home soon too, so even if I stayed the year, nothing would be the same, but it doesn't stop us from planning the apartment near Chatelet we are all going to rent together and the non-profit we are going to start so we have an excuse to stick around.
Also, packing sucks. I cannot believe that I have accumulated so much crap. I'm just lucky it doesn't all have to come home right now or I would be in big trouble.
Okay, back to updating my iTunes and waiting for the sun to rise so I can go get my other suitcase out of the closet next to my host parents' bedroom. Home so soon!
Well, obviously that last post was a lie, but here I am now. To go back awhile, Thanksgiving was fun. The whole family was here, complete with many pounds of potatoes, marshmallows, cranberries, and stuffing smuggled through customs in innocent-looking checked luggage. My host mother ordered us a turkey from her butcher, who also happens to be the butcher to the President of France ("presidents come and go, but the butcher remains"), and everything was delicious. We had a bunch of kids from my program over and I think everyone had a good time. It was nice to see my family, too, and I got to show Marissa that French is actually worth learning if you have people you can speak it to.
I also got to go to London to see Elyssa (and Hugh) a few weeks ago. It was great to see them, and London is a really cool city, but my French took SUCH a hit. It makes me really nervous to go home for Christmas/for good if I lost so much after three days away! Other than those respites, I have been either sick or working or both. I have an astonishing amount of work to do, and I've gotten extensions on almost all of it, which means I'll be working over Christmas too. I am not thrilled about this prospect.
I'm also really frustrated because a semester is not enough time here, and I wish I had the guts to stay a full year. Honestly, if I didn't know that my team was waiting for me, I think I would do it. Most of my non-rowing friends will be abroad this spring anyway. Half of me thinks, you can't just stay because you have responsibilities back at home, you have a roommate, you've registered for classes, the Tripod is depending on you, Model UN is depending on you, Habitat is depending on you, your team is depending on you...but then half of me thinks, those aren't real responsibilities because there is always someone else who can do those things, and when am I ever going to be in a place in my life where I have so few real responsibilities and I can just drop things? I was talking to one of my good friends here about this last night, and she's in kind of the same place I am: she plays lacrosse at Bates, and she knows that if she doesn't go back for the spring she'll never play again because there will be 40 kids trying out for the team her senior year and her coach will just cut her. I wish someone in authority would just make this decision for me. I keep talking to people studying abroad other places, and I usually hear variations on, "Yeah, I'm having fun, but I cannot wait to get out of here and go home," and that is not the case at all for me. I hate when my life doesn't go according to plan. I read somewhere that you always regret the things you don't do more than the things you do, but I can't figure out whether staying here is doing or not doing. It's a little ironic that I came so close to backing out and not coming here at all, and now I'm miserable at the thought of leaving. It's not that I don't miss Trinity, because I do, but I'm also so tired of some aspects of it, and a lot of what I miss won't be there when I get back because people have graduated and people are going abroad in the spring. I'm also afraid that the Trinity I left and the Trinity I'm coming back to won't be the same place and I won't like it as much. But I can't imagine leaving a sophomore and coming back a senior and missing out on five more months of Mather dinners that go past 8 p.m. and interminable Monday nights at Tripod and all-nighters straight through 'til morning practice during finals and AC's runs and the Red Sox on NESN and watching our squash team embarrass everyone else and the egg line and winning and everything else that makes home wonderful. So basically...I'm a mess.
Also my scale broke. Actually it just ran out of battery, but I can't figure out how to replace the battery, so it's about as useful to me as it would be if it were broken. You can just go ahead and assume that I have not gained any weight here, though, because I walk constantly. Sorry, team.
More to come later today, but in the meantime, I am in the midst of posting about 100 pictures, so you can check those out if you have a minute. I somehow screwed up the original album, so they're here.
I have a camera again, but my computer is freaking out slash I'm too lazy to figure out what's wrong, so no pictures for the moment.
I am in the midst of one 15-page paper and one 8-page paper, so obviously I have decided that updating this blog is the most prudent activity for me at the moment. Keep in mind that when I say "15," what I actually mean is "35," because they single-space papers over here, plus they use the A4, which is smaller than the 8.5x11, plus they use two-centimeter margins. But thinking of it as a 35-pager makes me want to die, so we'll stick with 15. Oh, and obviously all this stuff is in French.
I'm kind of frustrated right now because I really want to be out exploring and instead I am sitting here surrounded by books I don't want to read. There is so much fun stuff to do in this city and I can't do any of it. And by the time I am done with all this crap, it will be time to go home. It's times like this that I start thinking seriously about staying the whole year. I won't end up doing it, but I really feel like a semester is not enough.
I'm Sports Editor again next semester, despite my best efforts to move to a different section. I guess that's where they needed me, so it's back for round four.
I saw Kanye on Thursday! That was really cool. It was a little hilarious because the concert was kind of like a musical in that it had a plot punctuated by songs. The premise was that Kanye was in a spaceship that crashed on an uninhabited planet. For whatever reason, he was the only person in the spaceship, but fortunately, through some AI thing, the spaceship (named Jane) was able to communicate with him, so it was kind of like he had a friend. It was great because he would say stuff like, "Look at all those shooting stars!" and segue straight into "Flashing Lights," or, "I really wish I could go home and see my mother"--you got it, "Hey Mama." Then he gave a long speech at the end about how glad he was to be in Paris and how he really respects the opinions of the Parisians ("you're some of the few people whose opinions I respect" is actually what he said). I don't know how much of it the actual French people understood, but the Americans thought it was pretty funny. I guess it's not like, "Thank you Los Angeles," though...he doesn't come here very often, so it is a pretty big deal. I took a lot pictures, very few of which came out, but eventually I'll put them up.
I also went to the opera, which I know Marissa will find a lot less exciting than the previous paragraph. We saw "The Magic Flute," which I liked a lot, but apparently many of my fellow audience members did not. I did not know it was okay to boo at the opera, but I guess that's what you're supposed to do if you're underwhelmed. They didn't like the director very much, which I kind of understood, because he had it set up like the entire thing was a video game and they kept flashing stuff like "Press Start to resume play" on the stage. It was a little weird. I was happy, because it was subtitled into French and I understood like 90% of the subtitles. I have to be honest, though, if I were going to write an opera, I don't think I would do it in German. I realize that that's what language Mozart spoke, but I really think the Italians got it right.
My whole family got together this weekend without me and I'm sad. I have two baby first-cousins-once-removed (I looked that up and I'm right) and they are adorable and I want to play with them. Actually, my mom sent me pictures, so you can all see those. Meet Cole (15 months) and Lily (3 months).My mom and my dad and Marissa are coming on Wednesday for Thanksgiving! We're also inviting a bunch of the kids from my program. I think we're having a turkey, because my host mother was supposed to order one from her butcher (there's not a whole lot of demand for them right now, so you have to get them in advance), but I haven't heard anything about it in awhile, so I should really check on that tonight. Otherwise we're having a big chicken and telling everyone it's a turkey.
I have noticed another interesting cultural difference. I am usually late and always hungry, so the "grab and go" culture that the United States fosters is really perfect for my lifestyle. This does not exist here. Meals are meant to be eaten sitting down with your family and a large number of your closest friends. Even if you buy a sandwich to go, you're expected to eat it in a park or something with a bunch of people. I made myself a PB&J the other day to eat on my way to school, and realized that I was the only person eating on the Metro. You just aren't supposed to do it. I don't like to stick out, but I really like those extra 15 minutes of sleep, so I guess I'll have to continue being "that American" eating on the run.
I really should get back to "the actions of the United States in Germany between 1945 and 1969" (how's that for a paper topic?), because did I mention that it's my only grade in this class? And the professor is literally the scariest authority figure I have ever known? I'm going to go eat some chocolate to prepare me for the task at hand.
Oh! I forgot to say that it snowed here yesterday...everywhere but the eighth, where I live. We had sleet. Thanks, Paris.
46.0
Well, my American phone and camera got jacked the weekend before last, so I can't take pictures until my dad gets here with a new one. Lame.
I have had many visitors here! Anne from Trinity came from London for the weekend (when my 
camera got stolen), and then Hugh and Elyssa (also Trinity, also from London) were here last weekend with two of Elyssa's flatmates. The only thing that's tough about a host family is that I can't offer anyone housing when they come here, and staying in Paris isn't cheap, but both groups were able to find hotels and it worked out pretty well. I stole this picture of Hugh and Elyssa and me from Facebook. Hugh looks sad, but really he's ecstatic to be with Elyssa and me.
Anne had never been to Paris before, so I got to do a bunch of the touristy things I haven't really done since I got here, which was fun...although I drastically underestimated the amount of time it would take us to walk from the Marais, where we were having dinner, to the Eiffel Tower (I figured it would take 30, maybe 40 minutes), and 6K and 90 minutes later, we arrived just as it was closing and couldn't go up. But I wouldn't have had my camera with me to be stolen if she and I hadn't been doing touristy things, so we decided that we had each ruined the other's weekend and were now even.
Hugh and Elyssa were here for Halloween, which means absolutely nothing to anyone in this country, but some of my kind teammates sent me a care package containing, among other things, Double Stuf Oreos and Halloween temporary tattoos, so we all rocked those. I even got the director of my program to put a green witch on her hand.
After Hugh and Elyssa left for a week in Italy (they are on break; I am jealous), I went to see the new James Bond movie with some CUPA friends. I had never seen a James Bond movie before, but fortunately I was sitting with a connoisseur who was able to give me a little exposition before it started, and it was awesome. It was like "24" in movie form, which is a high compliment. It is my understanding that it is not out in the US yet (or at least it wasn't on Sunday), but go see it ASAP.
We also went to a chocolate fair on Sunday, and it was one of the most wonderful things I have ever experienced. It was at the massive French expo center just barely within Paris city limits and there were literally a thousand vendors selling everything from Lindt truffles to chocolate and onion sauce (meant to be eaten with foie gras, bien sur). Almost everyone offered free samples and I ate a ton and was just generally in heaven.
Tuesday night was, obviously, the election. Unfortunately, California is really far away from here, so we all napped during the day in preparation for the all-night festivities. We wanted to go to a party organized by the Young Democrats of Paris or something (the main selling point was that it cost 5 euros, they had big-screen TVs, and they started serving Barack Obagels at 3:00 a.m.), but there were like 4,000 people there and they only had room for 1,200. I made some phone calls (I'm pretty well-connected, but you knew that already) and got us into the American University of Paris viewing party. I'm going to take all credit for that since the other 11 people I was with had no suggestions whatsoever and I'm pretty sure I saved the night. I'm just saying. Anyway, they have a little on-campus pub thing, and not surprisingly, it was packed, but it was a great atmosphere. They served pancakes all night long and everyone in the room screamed the 10-second countdown every time another poll closed and fought about whether or not the Phillies deserved to win the World Series and heckled people from states that voted for McCain (it was a largely blue-state crowd) and it was generally the most wonderful display of Americanness I have seen in 10 weeks. The only thing missing was the Barack Obagels. They gave us a free champagne toast when CNN projected Obama as the winner and people broke out into a spontaneous rendition of the National Anthem and I was sick as a dog (as usual) and loved it all anyway. The metro re-opened at 5:30 in the morning, just in time for me to go home and catch Obama's speech with my host father, who was leaving for work. I slept until 4 p.m. yesterday. The French are ecstatic, by the way. Sarkozy is completely obsessed with Obama, but the people here in general pay a lot of attention to our politics. We have been getting congratulations from pretty much anyone who figures out that we are American.
Then yesterday I went to "Le Mariage de Figaro" at the Comedie Francaise, which I probably would have enjoyed more if a) I could have seen any of the action at all, b) I could have breathed, or c) the chairs were less comfortable and I was less inclined to fall asleep. I picked up on maybe 6% of what was going on. Oh well, at least I understood all of the French subtitles during "Quantum of Solace."
Hugh and Elyssa are coming back on Sunday on their way home to London and my father is coming...next weekend, I believe. So that will be nice.
46.6
Now you know why I refused to talk to anyone at the end of last week: I was afraid I would spill the secret! For anyone who was not at the Head of the Charles this weekend, you missed out, because I was. My dad had some frequent flier miles that were set to expire at the end of the month and I had a visa questions to sort out, so I figured, what better time to come home than the weekend that the entire rowing world was in Boston (and the Red Sox were playing...but I don't want to talk about that)?
My mom and sister didn't even know I was coming home; my dad knew because he helped set it up and I only told Ellie, Elyssa, and a couple of people here, so we managed to keep it pretty under wraps. 
My mother's reaction when I walked in the door was priceless, and Mina's shriek when I jumped out from behind the wall at her was a close second. So I definitely got the reception I had hoped for.
It was really great to be home, although it was kind of a tease. When I'm here, I decide about once a day that I am going to blow off America entirely and stay here, but by the time I boarded the plane for Boston, I was pretty sure I was just going to stay home and re-enroll in Trinity mid-semester. I have a lot of things to look forward to both here and in Hartford, which is really exciting. Anyway, the highlight of the weekend (other than the Trinity women's hard-earned third-place finish) was the amount of American food I consumed. I have literally never tasted better clam chowder than what they serve during Charles, so obviously I tied last year's record with three bowls. And with Halloween fast approaching, my father was happy to pick up bags of fun-sized Hershey bars and Reese's for me to bring back over here.
I arrived in Boston Friday afternoon and left Monday evening (I got back here just in time for my morning classes), and with jet-lag and racecourse-walking and general travel fatigue, I slept for 14 hours last night, which I needed badly. Oh! And after a little mishap with some hydrogen peroxide and my eyes (Marissa uses it to clean her contacts before putting them in solution; I was a little bleary-eyed and misunderstood the label and used it AS solution), I have finally ditched the glasses and I am back to contacts. What a relief, especially since it's been raining here.
Last night I went to a Caravan Palace concert after class. You've never heard of them. They're French and a friend of mine saw them play in Bruges and said they were the most fun band she'd ever
seen live, so we traipsed over to the Bastille to see them. They lived up to the billing. It's kind of funny, because I don't think I would ever listen to their CD in my room (they play kind of a mix of circus music and techno), but they were amazing live. It probably had something to do with the fact that they were rocking out on stage like they were at latenight and projecting cartoons and old Charlie Chaplin movies and a ton of other random things on the wall behind them, and every person there was just so into it. Plus the lighting was terrific. I tried to take little videos with my digital camera and they're up on Picasa (Mom, do you think you can find the URL by yourself this time?), but they really don't capture how much fun it was. Also, KANYE is coming to Paris November 20 and obviously I already have my ticket. I don't think I have to explain how excited I am.
Well, it's been the weekend over here for like 32 hours already, so I guess I don't have to go to bed, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea since I have grand plans for tomorrow: I am going to register to use the library. If this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, you probably have no idea how impossible the French bureaucracy (and let's be honest, the French language) is.
46.4
So...it's been awhile. What can I say, I'm too busy having a ball to write about it. I will try to do a better job of recording my exploits in the future.
Last week was fun; nothing especially important happened, but I am loving these four-and-a-half-day weekends. I decide on something I want to buy/do that is in a really remote place in Paris, look up how to get there, and then spend a few hours exploring that area. I have now ridden metro lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 14--leaving 3 bis, 5, 7 bis, 8, and 11. I plan to have this completed by the end of next week.
I spent Saturday in Chantilly with my program--it's a town with a pretty castle and not much else, so the seven hours we spent there were more than sufficient. When we got there at 10 a.m., the fog was so thick that we couldn't even find the castle, but it cleared while we were on our seemingly endless tour, which would probably have been more interesting if a) it had been in English, and b) we hadn't seen 12 versions of the same room with the furniture rearranged. The gardens were worth the trip, though (pictures are up).
Sunday I explored the Marche aux Puces in Clignancourt: it's just barely outside Paris city limits and the entire town turns into a massive flea market system every week from Saturday morning until Monday night. Highlights included T-shirts that said "I Heart My Ghetto" (I saw this shirt and several variations more than once), multi-colored knock-off Yankee hats with the logo in cursive (although I can't imagine they're making much money off those at this point), and classic Jaguars just hanging out in the street waiting for someone to buy them. I didn't take pictures because I was afraid of the ramifications of photographing something without buying it, but I plan to go back with a wingman who can pose in front of things.
Then tonight I went to Catholic mass. I'm not Catholic and I'm not French, so I had no idea what was going on, but I went with a French (Catholic) friend, so I followed her lead. Interesting things I learned: Catholics take Communion every day (I thought it was just every Sunday), the French tu-toi (use the informal "you" when speaking to) God, but vous-voi (the formal "you) Mary, and a Catholic church is an "eglise" (translated into English as church), but a Protestant church is a "temple" (translate into English as just what it looks like). Anyway, I guess this is the official church of the Sorbonne, because they had kind of a youth group-esque meeting (sort of like the Newman Club at Trinity, I guess) for all Sorbonne students afterward. I actually had a terrific time struggling through explanations as to what I was doing there.
Also, it is SO hot here. It was 80 degrees yesterday! Unfortunately, I spent two hours of this lovely day in a classroom built for 30 people but containing 40, with all the windows closed because people were making noise outside. You can guess how long it took me to stop paying attention.
Now, on for some important cultural differences that I think need to be addressed:
Personal space
It should come as a shock to no one who has ever met me that I like to have a certain amount of air between me and anyone near me. The French have no interest whatsoever in respecting this barrier. Without fail, I meet someone and stick my hand out to shake and am awkwardly met by the person leaning in for the cheek kiss-kiss. I understand that this is how people greet each other here, but seriously, if I don't even know you, keep your face away from my face. This extends to pretty much all aspects of life: the seats on the metro are built such that anyone with legs cannot sit in them without awkwardly entangling his legs with those of the person across from him. I am not a large person, but even I cannot sit in a metro seat without being all up in everyone else's grill. Also, in the event that a lot of people want to take the same metro at the same time, there seems to be no problem with packing people in there until they literally fall out when the doors open. The upside to this is that there is no way you will be pickpocketed during the trip as no one can move.
Water
Just to provide an example, my host family goes through two carafes of water every night at dinner: one for me, and one for the three of them. I drink at least a bottle of water, usually two, during my classes. I have a water bottle in my bag at all times and refill it multiple times throughout the day. I am the only person (besides every other American in my program) for whom this is the case. Maybe I spend too much time around athletes who need to be properly hydrated, but I just cannot figure out how the French subsist on the 12 ounces of water they seem to imbibe per day. I mentioned this to my host family at dinner the other night and my host mother told me that a study recently came out by a French nutritionist that advised the French to drink water during the day but not at meals because that would help them keep weight off. If this is true, it would explain a lot. Nonetheless, I continue to drain a small ocean every day to keep myself hydrated.
Peanut Butter
They hate it here. My host mother bought me some as a gift from a store that sells only foreign food, but not before referring to it as a "cochonnerie" (which derives from the word for pig and is generally pretty derogatory). My host father literally runs from the kitchen when he sees me ruining his jelly by adding peanut butter to it for a sandwich. When I mentioned it to my French friend, she said she did not understand Americans and asked if it was true that we had cheese in a can (which I do not think is fair, because yes it is true, but I do not feel that these two snack foods are on the same level). I have been devouring it.
47.8
Sixteen hours from now, I will be in America. My strategy for this one is to stay up all night packing, take advantage of the fact that Air France will serve me wine, down a demi-bouteille as I board, and sleep for the duration of my flight and any potential delays. I'm pretty excited to see how it goes. 
